Byzantine Catholic youth says young people want to be heard

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Young people want trusted guides as they explore their faith and their vocation, said five young adults from the United States attending the Vatican’s pre-synod meeting.

The U.S. delegates to the Vatican meeting March 19-25 also said the 305 young adults from around the world want to see young people consulted more often in their parishes and dioceses.

And, one said, in conversations with other delegates, he discovered that Catholics in other countries are not experiencing the sharp divisions that U.S. Catholics are.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops sent three delegates to the meeting: De La Salle Christian Brother Javier Hansen, who teaches at Cathedral High School in El Paso, Texas; Nick Lopez, director of campus ministry for the University of Dallas; and Katie Prejean-McGrady, a wife, new mother, youth minister, and a popular speaker from the Diocese of Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Christopher Russo, a 23-year-old working in Boston, represented the Byzantine Catholic Metropolia of Pittsburgh, and Nicole Perone, director of adult faith formation for the Archdiocese of Hartford, Connecticut, represented Voices of Faith, an international group that highlights the contributions of women in the church.

A topic that came up consistently at the meeting, Prejean-McGrady said, was young people’s desire to find companions on the journey, to look for people to walk with them.
When they have personal relationships with people who are vibrantly living their faith, then they are inspired to live their faith, she said. And the relationship also provides a trusted source for dealing with concerns about topics such as sexuality or church teachings that may be difficult to understand, she said.

“Here’s a book; believe it” — that doesn’t work with young people anymore, Prejean-McGrady said. People of faith have to talk with them, walk with them, love them and really spend time with them.

Lopez noted that Pope Francis opened the meeting March 19 by telling the delegates that the church wants to hear their opinions and their questions, even those they think might make church leaders uncomfortable.

In ministry to young people, they need to know they can ask those questions and that they will be discussed. Nothing is too radical. Nothing is out of left field, he said. If a young person is struggling with something, that is all the reason needed to discuss it.
Human issues are church issues, and the church isn’t going to get anywhere unless it begins the conversation, Lopez said.

Young people seem to live in an age of anxiety, meaning that in a world of seemingly endless possibilities, they are almost paralyzed because they have all of these different options and they want to go forth, but they want to make the right decision, and they want to do so without the fear of failure, Russo said.

“My hope is that just as Christ walked with the apostles, the church will walk with young people as they are discerning all these different thoughts and considering different paths,” he said.

The accompaniment discussion was key for Perone, who counts herself blessed to have had the guidance and friendship of a number of people, but especially of really bright, faithful women, who love the church and have dedicated their lives in service to the church.

The preparatory document for the synod, which will be held in October, talks about role models, guides and mentors, she said, but a lot of young people do not know how to ask for such accompaniment, and many adults do not realize they can offer that to young people.

Faith mentors to young people, she said, first must be faithful Christians, people who are living their lives faithfully and are committed to walking the journey of holiness.

And, she said, they need to be people who are not afraid to acknowledge they are human and make mistakes. The words “authenticity” and “vulnerability” came up constantly. Those are the two characteristics young people crave, desire and are drawn to because they make a mentor both trustworthy and approachable, she added.

The young adults said their experience in Rome — meeting with the pope and formulating suggestions for the bishops who will meet in October — was an amazing global example of what young people would like to see in their parishes and dioceses as well.

All young people within the church want to be heard, Russo said. They want to have their thoughts expressed as they journey closer to Christ.

In formulating suggestions for the bishops, Lopez said, one of the main ones was having events, similar to this pre-synod gathering, more common in the parishes, by including young adults on the parish or diocesan councils or creating parish or diocesan advisory committees of youth and having those councils meet often.

The U.S. church is blessed to have very passionate young adults who take the initiative to form independent Catholic groups for young adults to meet, outside the church and outside the parish, he said, but there is still the need to integrate them into parish life, to show they are not a separate group and actually part of that community.

The delegates spent most of the week in small groups, working on their suggestions for the synod. Brother Hansen said he told his discussion group that one of the characteristics of the U.S. church is this extreme polarization between liberal and conservative Catholics, and “I was surprised that one thing I found was that (this) is more or less uniquely American.”

The delegates from the wealthy Western nations would talk about church teaching on controversial issues or the need to be present on the digital platforms where young people spend their time, but Americans have to move beyond these First World problems, Perone said. She said she was touched by the witness of delegates coming from places where Christians experience violent persecution.

In the United States, she said, it’s easy to get bogged down in division and soundbites, which drive people apart, rather than to focus on unity, the beauty of truth and of the faith, the joy of the Gospel, and not the divisive nuances.

Horizons requested an interview with Byzantine Catholic delegate Christopher Russo during his time in Rome. Unfortunately, his response was not received before press time.

Caption
: (L. to r.): Katie Prejean-McGrady, De La Salle Christian Brother Javier Hansen, Christopher Russo and Nick Lopez, some of the young adults from the United States participating in the Vatican’s pre-synod meeting, pose March 21 in front of St. Peter’s Square. Russo, who is a faithful of the Eparchy of Passaic, was selected to represent the Byzantine Catholic Metropolia of Pittsburgh. (Photo: CNS/Robert Duncan)